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Plant closings spread as auto parts workers strike

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Latest comment posted at 8:46 PM EST 02/03/08

GM halting work at Michigan, Indiana and Ontario factories; Chrysler suspending operations at Windsor, Ont., plant ...Read the full article

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  1. Don Bryant from Calgary, Canada writes: And the greed and stupidity of the Auto Workers Union once again comes to the fore.
  2. S H from Windsor, Canada writes: Don Bryant......hardly greed Don. The TRW workers only make $11.25/hour. They want a raise so they can afford to put food on the table....not so they can afford the average price of a home in Canada at $309,000!!!!
  3. Get2 work from Canada writes: Funny how the article fails to mention that TRW employees in Windsor top out at $11.25/hr.

    I wonder if the media is responsible for creating the views held by people like Don Bryant from Calgary?

    Better to keep perpetuating the myth that autoworkers are lazy and overpaid, unlike the hardworking folks of western Canada.
  4. harry carnie from Northern, B.C, Canada writes: Don Bryant...........yup.......the A.W.U want to feed and clothe their children ... how greedy and selfish of them.
  5. Don Quixote from The Banana Belt, Ont., Canada writes: Greed seems to be much less an attitude of the Auto Workers putting the vehicles together....

    ....than the selfgratulating washed up froth mostly in a lot of top managements nowadays.
  6. Sweeney Todd from Oilberta, Canada writes: Don Bryant from Calgary, Canada writes: And the greed and stupidity of the Auto Workers Union once again comes to the fore. Just to keep some balance, consider that the head of Nortel is getting a 22% raise this year taking his yearly compensation package to $10,000,000.00. Never mind that the companies stock dropped 53% in the last year. The guys working the line at an auto parts manufacturer are greedy by comparison? And it's the United Auto Workers in the US Don, not the CAW.
  7. roger price from Andorra writes: The comments overlook the basic problem and that is that auto assembly in a global occupation and even at $11.25/hour employees in Canada are not able to compete with Korea or Asia nor with the upcoming Chinese workers, sorry but facts are facts. Either we close our borders or people better take training to do something that the foreigners cannot do cheaper.
  8. Patriots in 2007 from Toronto, Canada writes: To Roger Price. The same can be said for almost any other profession. Physicians, engineers, IT professionals, everything can be outsourced to some third world country. I don't think there is anything that you can learn and upgrade yourself to that someone else making 1/10th the amount in a country like India or China can't learn. It is all about trade barriers of one sort or another that is keeping all professions from getting slaughtered by cheap foreign labour.
  9. S H from Windsor, Canada writes: Roger Price.....a Canadian company could invent a cure for cancer. If this company can make it somewhere else for less money, trust me, they will. Globalization is the problem! Just ask the millions of farmers in Mexico who now have to compete with the produce coming in from the States. Can we expect them to go back to school for retraining as well?
  10. Gold Standard from Canada writes: This is the fault of trade deals that put us in competition with slaves. Soon we will not be able to buy their cars at all because they will have lowered our pay so much. We are slowly turning in to Mexico.
  11. Get2 work from Canada writes: Gold Standard said it all.

    Free trade with countries that have similiar standards of living is one thing, but being to forced to compete with countries where it's citizens have annual incomes of $1000/yr is ridiculous.

    There is no upside to free trade, other then the few investors at the top that make a bundle.
  12. Stand up for Social Justice The Canadian Way from Canada writes: As more and more workers feel the pressure to lower wages, lack of benefits, lack of protection in the workplace, those voices will start to rise. The face of labour needs to change, it needs to reach back to the communities, to become more community based, to involve all workers and community members in an effort to gain back what so many have lost. A wage of $11.25 per hour, is not a living wage in todays standards and these workers deserve to be earning a living wage in order to support their familiers and communitities.
  13. Patriots in 2007 from Toronto, Canada writes: Get2 work: I do still condone free trade, however. But your statement "Free trade with countries that have similiar standards of living is one thing" is the key. We should start with having free trade with the other G7 nations first. Heck, we don't even have free trade between PROVINCES yet, let's not start opening the flood gates to third world countries.
    Only AFTER we sort out the trade issues between provinces and G7 nations should we start to take a look at developing countries or neighbouring countries (eg. Latin America, Pacific Rim). Having trade agreements with developing nations will help them to improve their standard of living and I think it is good for world peace and the world economy, but we should do this in a controlled manner, not just throwing open the gates and letting everything flood in... Environmental and labour standards should be roughly equivalent before we even consider a free trade agreement.
  14. Normand LaBine from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada writes: Sweeney Todd from Oilberta. Nice handle. We'll oil beef hooked if we don't shake off this dependency on more. This hunger for new and questionably better vehicles is way beyond any logical need. I buy a new toaster because the last one died, not because the new one is cuter, has chrome buttons or works with a remote.

    The US just released Stats showing that 81% of its licensed vehicles are older than 5 years old. Where's the demand? We only buy 3 million new cars, trucks, buses every year. So is Canadian production going off-shore, beyond US borders? If so, who's buying them.

    GM just shut a plant in Great Britain. They've lost continental market share to Asia, and seem to be squeezing North American workers to lower rates. Japan isn't even trying to squeeze lower wage rates, and they are a far more costly nation to live in than Canada or the US. What's the real deal?
  15. bill k from Canada writes: The working class better get smart and form a labour party to protect them from the greedy capitalist. Those who bash the UAW or CAW better understand that they are slowing down the capitalist goal of turning us all into slaves.

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